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Suddenly, it seems, everyone is desperate to see the world from new vantage points. In March, Facebook paid $2 billion for Oculus VR, an upstart maker of virtual-reality headsets that have yet to hit the market. And last month, Google unit Nest spent $555 million on Dropcam, a Wi-Fi-based camera that streams continuous video, effectively making its users a fly on the wall in a distant room.

But perhaps the greatest sign of our latest obsession is revealed in the torrid shares of
GoProGPRO 0.32608695652173914%GoPro Inc.U.S.: NasdaqUSD9.23
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3802448AFTER HOURSUSD9.22
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1293197989.47353
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702705More quote details and news »GPROinYour ValueYour ChangeShort position
(ticker: GPRO), the maker of wearable cameras. Initially created for athletes to share first-person accounts of their adventures, GoPro cameras have found a mainstream audience. The latest sensation is head-mounted footage from a man rushing his pregnant wife to the hospital after she goes into labor. The camera kept rolling, even as the baby arrived in the hospital's parking lot.

Everyday life can't compete. Over 1.8 million people have watched the YouTube video in the week since it was posted.

GoPro increasingly sees itself as a media company. Here's a description from its recent prospectus: "From extreme to mainstream, professional to consumer, GoPro has enabled the world to capture and share its passions, and the world, in turn, is enabling GoPro to become one of the most exciting and aspirational companies of our time."

Investors see unlimited promise. GoPro is up 63% since its June 25 IPO, closing the week at $39. The company is now worth $4.8 billion, giving it a sky-high multiple of 83 times last year's earnings.

At its core, this is still a gadget company. GoPro sells its entry-level Hero camera for $199. Last year, sales totaled $986 million; earnings were $61 million. Citing research from NPD Group, GoPro says the sales added up to 45% of the U.S. camcorder market in 2013. It's worth noting that the rest of that market has been decimated by smartphones in recent years.

IN SOME WAYS, THE EXCITEMENT over GoPro is a quaint return to pre-smartphone days. It's hard to find stand-alone gadgets that haven't been subsumed by our phones. GoPro, though, still risks suffering a similar fate. The cautionary tale is Flip, the groundbreaking camera that Cisco Systems bought for $590 million in 2009. The Flip was a miniature marvel, bringing the world high-definition home videos from a device that easily fit in a back pocket. Nifty idea, but it was a feature, not a product, as Apple's iPhone soon made clear. Cisco shuttered the Flip business just two years after its purchase.

A few years back, Apple accounted for 45% of OmniVision sales, Gill says. But that began to fade when Apple dropped OmnVision sensors, starting with the iPhone 4S in 2011. The stock is since down 40%. The 4S incorporated a new image sensor from
Sony6758.TO 0.823045267489712%Sony Corp. ADRU.S.: NYSEUSD29.4
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547011More quote details and news »6758.TOinYour ValueYour ChangeShort position
(SNE), which quickly created its own smartphone component business. Apple has used Sony ever since, though it still buys OmniVision's lower-end sensors for iPads.

The good news for OmniVision is that Apple no longer controls its destiny. "The Apple question has been de-risked for OmniVision," Gills says. No one, Gill included, is expecting Apple to use OmniVision's image sensor in the iPhone 6 when it comes out this fall. Any surprise would create huge upside for the stock.

More likely, OmniVision's future is tied up in the limitless desire to document our lives. Some 70% of OmniVision sales are currently for smartphone sensors. Most of the Apple business has now been replaced by Chinese smartphones, but a wave of GoPro-like cameras would surely create new opportunity for OmniVision. (The latest GoPro model, it's worth noting, uses a Sony image sensor.)

Investors seem in the dark on that front. As GoPro shares have surged in the past two weeks, OmniVision is flat. The stock closed the week at $22.

LONG-TERM, OMNIVISION'S biggest opportunity could be from the automotive market, a booming area for tech firms, as my colleague Tiernan Ray wrote last week. Starting in 2018, federal regulators have required that all new cars be equipped with rear-view backup cameras. That could be just the start.

In higher-end cars, image sensors are increasingly being used for safety features like lane departure monitoring. And Gill says that car makers will eventually replace side mirrors with cameras, reducing weight and wind drag.

The chip industry surely sees the opportunity, which could make OmniVision a takeout play in the coming years. Last month,
ON Semiconductor
(ONNN) bought Aptina Imaging for $400 million in cash. Aptina is the leading maker of image sensors for car companies, with OmniVision in second place, Gill says.

Gill, one of the few OmniVision bulls on Wall Street, has a Buy rating and $27 price target on the stock.

For now, the market is braced for the worst. Analysts expect OmniVision sales to fall 4% this year to $1.39 billion. Earnings could tumble 29%, in what amounts to a reset year. With Apple finally in the rear-view mirror, the numbers should start to improve.

OmniVision has a market value of $1.2 billion, but $450 million of that is in cash. Subtract that out and the company trades at 8.7 times this year's earnings.

In the world of hot technology, valuations tend to get forgotten. OmniVision won't be branding its own adventure videos, but it could very well power the devices that make them.